


Quiet

by Aryagraceling



Series: Every Day I'm Tumblin' [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Tumblr Prompt, referenced character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 10:15:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20526356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aryagraceling/pseuds/Aryagraceling
Summary: Kakashi’s life has been ruled by quiet. He’s either ordering others to silence, biting his lip against a snarky comment to other leaders with their heads up their ass, or out on a mission and holding his breath in fear of discovery. It’s not so bad to be quiet, though, and in secrecy, in silence, he’s found solace.Sakura’s mission was to bring him out of the quiet and into the busyness of everyday life. He’s never concerned himself with being busy. He finds busy work useless, taking up time that could better be put to use training, reading, sitting and staring into space as he’s so wont to do.Being busy was always her thing.





	Quiet

**Author's Note:**

> Requested via tumblr by bouncyirwin, Kakasaku with "I died when she did"

Kakashi’s life has been ruled by quiet. He’s either ordering others to silence, biting his lip against a snarky comment to other leaders with their heads up their ass, or out on a mission and holding his breath in fear of discovery. It’s not so bad to be quiet, though, and in secrecy, in silence, he’s found solace. 

Sakura’s mission was to bring him out of the quiet and into the busyness of everyday life. He’s never concerned himself with being busy. He finds busy work useless, taking up time that could better be put to use training, reading, sitting and staring into space as he’s so wont to do.

Being busy was always _her _thing.

Oh, she dragged him into the noise sometimes, tugging him toward one activity or another to distract him from when his duties become too much. There’s a painting on the wall from a class they took together–one Kakashi had balked at–when, back when they were nothing more than friends, she’d realized how much time he spends fixating on things that no longer matter. There’s a pot on the shelf she hates–_hated, _he thinks bitterly–because it’s lopsided, evidence of failure…but it reminds him of the way her hands looked as they molded the clay and in time, the pieces of his heart. 

Time is always something he’s had a problem with. At first when his father passed and then everyone else around him, he’d had entirely too much of it. He spent it staring in horror at hands that had taken everything from him, and he’d wished that the days would pass quicker. 

Then he’d found a purpose, and his prayer for time to slip away turned into a cry of “_please stop.”_

Time with Sakura wasn’t ever wasted. Not time spent crafting, not time spent fucking, not even time spent fighting…and all of the countless hours will never have been enough.

Not when he won’t have another moment.

His eyes are dry, itchy as he stares at the pattern of the bark in front of him. It’s fitting she died in spring. He hopes she died somewhere nice, somewhere where the wind could cover her in the cherry blossoms she always loved. They’re the same color as the blanket he’s got clutched against his chest, the one she insisted he keep out of reach of the dogs.

It was another project she’d tried roping him into, and one that she’d found she enjoyed much more than he did. On nights when either she or both of them were too keyed up to sleep, she’d pull out her needles and focus on the way the string pulled instead of the way her hands shook with lingering anxieties. On afternoons when he couldn’t focus on paperwork, the gentle clicking helped him focus on something other than _I can’t._

Now he has a blanket and no one to share it with.

He hates that they never went past _friends _in public. His ANBU contingent knows, sure. A select few friends, sure, but he’s expected to go to work every day and stare at the empty space where she tended to plant herself on non-hospital days. He’s expected to write it off as nothing but another casualty and thank her family for her service to the village.

Kakashi wonders how many days he can claim he’s ill before people begin to question.

It’s been two so far, and he plans on going for a third. He hasn’t slept, hasn’t even had the energy to _try. _Tsunade would end him if she knew he hasn’t eaten either, but that might not be so bad. At least he wouldn’t have to look at the blanket and painting and pot and remember that he couldn’t even see her body one last time.

His tears dried up sometime around midnight last night, when he’d sat staring sightlessly at the same tree for the second night in a row. Part of him wishes he could cry again, wail and rage against the unfairness of it all, but that isn’t proper.

It isn’t the quiet he so desperately seeks.

Shadows dance along the ground and he doesn’t know if it’s his imagination or if someone’s come to end it for him. As footsteps whisper over the grass, he sincerely hopes it’s the latter.

“You’re up late,” he hears, and then the click of a lighter. “It’s a drag, isn’t it?”

Kakashi tightens his arms around the blanket. “Funny way of putting it.”

“Mm.” Shikamaru’s legs enter the edge of Kakashi’s vision, bending as he sits next to him. “Really fucking sucks, then.”

“I told the ANBU no one was to be let in,” Kakashi says with a sigh, burying his face in pink. “Why are you here?”

“Tsunade’s worried.”

“Tsunade’s meddling,” Kakashi bites out, letting it ring across the otherwise empty yard before his shoulders slump in defeat. “What does she want?”

Shikamaru takes a long drag of his cigarette. “For you to get back to work.”

“Don’t have the energy,” Kakashi says. “I practically signed her death warrant. I can’t go back there and face that.”

Ash flutters to the ground amidst the smoke from Shikamaru’s slow exhale. “I handed her the orders myself. I killed her just as much as you did.”

As much as he wants to scream at Shikamaru to leave him alone, Kakashi decides it’s more prudent to let him sit and talk at him. One cigarette goes down as he holds his silence, and another’s half gone before Shikamaru tries again.

“I told her I’m not the right person to come talk to you,” he says softly. “There’s no words to say I’m sorry you lost her. I am too.”

Kakashi gnaws on his lip as, unbidden, his eyes begin to prick with tears. He doesn’t want sympathy. He doesn’t want Shikamaru to see him break apart without her there to piece him back together, but his voice cracks when he answers. “I died when she did. Why don’t you tell Tsunade that?”

Shikamaru laughs without any trace of humor. “Trust me, there’s nothing more I’d rather do. You’re…never mind.” His head hangs between the arms balanced on his knees as he shakes his head and changes his tone. “It’s not Tsunade you need to answer to, anyway. It’s the piles of paperwork and the people you were chosen to preside over.”

“Never mind what?” Kakashi mumbles into the blanket.

“Nothing.”

“Tell me,” Kakashi orders, and Shikamaru’s nearly silent admission that he loved her as well sets the tears to spilling over. He leans into the younger man’s shoulder, shaking as he holds back the sobs threatening to shatter the sanctity of them and the tree mourning together under the moonlight. 

Eventually, Shikamaru maneuvers his arm over Kakashi’s shoulder and pulls the blanket around them. Kakashi doesn’t have the words to argue, mutely accepting the comfort as he settles into sightless staring once more. His head pounds and his entire body aches under the weight of grief, but Shikamaru’s shoulders bow just as heavily, and it’s something neither can change at the moment.

They can only sit here, in the quiet that’s ruling Kakashi’s life once again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments always read and _very_ much appreciated, and I always do my best to get back to them ❤️
> 
> You can also find me lurking and yelling about fictional characters on:  
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End file.
